The Feb 1 story headlined "Backdoor taxes to hit middle class" is wrong and has been withdrawn. The story said lower-income families will pay more under tax provisions scheduled to expire Dec 31. The Obama administration's budget calls for the extension of those tax provisions for households earning less than $250,000. There will be no substitute story.

Thank you Mr. Bush for getting our country more in debt than all 42 presidents before you combined.
We love it!

That is a dubious assertion at best. The generally accepted number is that under Bush, we added about $4.8 trillion to the national debt in 8 years. Obama has already added more than $2 trillion in one year. We're on track to add at least $2 trillion per year for some time. This means Obama is accumulating debt at a rate nearly 4 times faster than George Bush. If that were to happen, by the end of Obama's first term, he'd have added nearly twice as much debt in four years as Bush did in 8.

The budget numbers we're seeing now bear this out. Obama's deficit is now 4 times higher than the largest Bush deficit. Even factoring in TARP and other recession measures/problems, one can say Bush's responsibility for the following year stops at $800 billion. This means Obama has doubled the deficit--all in one year. There is no way that we're spending $800 billion a year on "tax cuts for the rich" and "two wars."

And this year? Obama owns it. There is no more argument that he inherited the deficit after this year. None. The electorate didn't buy it at the SOTU. They certainly won't buy it now.

By the way, we've raised the debt limit twice in the last 6 weeks, by a total of nearly four trillion dollars.

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Since Democrats took control of Congress in January 2007, the debt limit has been raised by Congress five times and the national debt (the combined public debt and debt held in government accounts) has increased by 42.5 percent or $3.69 trillion. This would be the third time that President Obama will have increased the debt limit since being inaugurated.

SDW doesn't realize that it's all academic. We've proven on this forum many times now that really it is for the most part Bush's fault. Sure this debacle began before he was in office but he did such a good job of magnifying so many times it might as well be his fault.

How much did the deficit go up while he was in office? Almost doubled as I recall.

He had 8 long years to do something about all of the issues. SDW doesn't want you to talk about how much worse things got under his command or how things might not be so bad if he'd at least tried to do something about the mess.

And instead here we are still cleaning up his mess.

Without the need for difference or a need to always follow the herd breeds complacency, mediocrity, and a lack of imagination

SDW doesn't realize that it's all academic. We've proven on this forum amny times now that really it is for the most part Bush's fault. Sure this debacle began before he was in office but he did such a good job of magnifying so many times it might as well be his fault.

How much did the deficit go up while he was in office? Almost doubled as I recall.

He had 8 long years to do something about all of the issues. SDW doesn't want you to talk about how much worse things got under his command or how things might not be so bad if he'd at least tried to do something about the mess.

And instead here we are still cleaning up his mess.

What? I hope you are foreign. All I got from that jumble, is that it is all Bush's fault. Tell me, how did President Bush cause the housing crisis? Have your taxes gone up to pay for the Bush deficits? You may want to look up the Community Reinvestment Act, if you want to find the root of the problem.

The Republicans had control of the congress and the presidency leading up to it. There were plenty of warning signs. They didn't give a shit because they and their buddies were making a ton of money. You can't just sit there and ignore that the Republicans had complete control and did nothing but make things worse. Why the fuck should we let them have complete control again?

“The nitrogen in our DNA, the calcium in our teeth, the iron in our blood, the carbon in our apple pies were made in the interiors of collapsing stars. We are made of starstuff.” -Sagan

The Republicans had control of the congress and the presidency leading up to it. There were plenty of warning signs. They didn't give a shit because they and their buddies were making a ton of money. You can't just sit there and ignore that the Republicans had complete control and did nothing but make things worse. Why the fuck should we let them have complete control again?

Neither side is doing a stellar job on that front.

NoahJ"It is unwise to be too sure of one's own wisdom. It is healthy to be reminded that the strongest might weaken and the wisest might err." - Mahatma Gandhi

Republicans do a lot to help dig a very deep hole in which this country fell.

Now we're in the hole and Democrats are in control...and all the Republicans can do is go around yelling, "Hey assholes, we're still stuck in this hole! WTF is wrong with you people? Why aren't we out of this hole yet? Clearly this must be all your fault."

Newsflash: Don't bitch about not getting out of the hole you helped dig fast enough.

“The nitrogen in our DNA, the calcium in our teeth, the iron in our blood, the carbon in our apple pies were made in the interiors of collapsing stars. We are made of starstuff.” -Sagan

Republicans do a lot to help dig a very deep hole in which this country fell.

Now we're in the hole and Democrats are in control...and all the Republicans can do is go around yelling, "Hey assholes, we're still stuck in this hole! WTF is wrong with you people? Why aren't we out of this hole yet? Clearly this must be all your fault."

Newsflash: Don't bitch about not getting out of the hole you helped dig fast enough.

Bravo! Exactly!

Without the need for difference or a need to always follow the herd breeds complacency, mediocrity, and a lack of imagination

The Republicans had control of the congress and the presidency leading up to it. There were plenty of warning signs. They didn't give a shit because they and their buddies were making a ton of money. You can't just sit there and ignore that the Republicans had complete control and did nothing but make things worse. Why the fuck should we let them have complete control again?

Republicans do a lot to help dig a very deep hole in which this country fell.

Now we're in the hole and Democrats are in control...and all the Republicans can do is go around yelling, "Hey assholes, we're still stuck in this hole! WTF is wrong with you people? Why aren't we out of this hole yet? Clearly this must be all your fault."

Newsflash: Don't bitch about not getting out of the hole you helped dig fast enough.

Standing right along side of them pushing for their own pet projects are the Democrats. They are both putting on steam as we head for a new shorter route to China... (maybe that is their plan all along, why use shipping routes when we can go direct? )

I agree with your newsflash, just not with the over-subscription of blame.

NoahJ"It is unwise to be too sure of one's own wisdom. It is healthy to be reminded that the strongest might weaken and the wisest might err." - Mahatma Gandhi

The Republicans had control of the congress and the presidency leading up to it. There were plenty of warning signs. They didn't give a shit because they and their buddies were making a ton of money. You can't just sit there and ignore that the Republicans had complete control and did nothing but make things worse. Why the fuck should we let them have complete control again?

Please share with us again exactly how many years of the Bush administration the Republicans controlled the House and Senate.

Please share with us again exactly how many years of the Bush administration the Republicans controlled the House and Senate.

They had 6 years of control of the house and 4 years of joint control of both houses from 2003 to 2007. You say 1 year of complete control by the Democrats is enough to go apeshit over them, so why don't the 4 years count? And it was a 50/50 split for the first 2 years in the Senate...

Of course, you already knew this. You just avoid having to say anything of substance by sending a silly question back to me.

“The nitrogen in our DNA, the calcium in our teeth, the iron in our blood, the carbon in our apple pies were made in the interiors of collapsing stars. We are made of starstuff.” -Sagan

Herein lies the foundation for the housing crisis, and thus the recession-

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Hearing from September 2003 on an administration proposal to alter the regulation of GSEs like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. See Congressman Barney Frank's opening statement, which begins at 4:40. It's rather amusing. Here's an excerpt of his opening statement:
I want to begin by saying that I am glad to consider the legislation, but I do not think we are facing any kind of a crisis. That is, in my view, the two government sponsored enterprises we are talking about here, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, are not in a crisis. We have recently had an accounting problem with Freddie Mac that has led to people being dismissed, as appears to be appropriate. I do not think at this point there is a problem with a threat to the Treasury.

I must say we have an interesting example of self-fulfilling prophecy. Some of the critics of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac say that the problem is that the Federal Government is obligated to bail out people who might lose money in connection with them. I do not believe that we have any such obligation. And as I said, it is a self-fulfilling prophecy by some people.

So let me make it clear, I am a strong supporter of the role that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac play in housing, but nobody who invests in them should come looking to me for a nickel--nor anybody else in the Federal Government. And if investors take some comfort and want to lend them a little money and less interest rates, because they like this set of affiliations, good, because housing will benefit. But there is no guarantee, there is no explicit guarantee, there is no implicit guarantee, there is no wink-and-nod guarantee. Invest, and you are on your own.

Now, we have got a system that I think has worked very well to help housing. The high cost of housing is one of the great social bombs of this country. I would rank it second to the inadequacy of our health delivery system as a problem that afflicts many, many Americans. We have gotten recent reports about the difficulty here.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have played a very useful role in helping make housing more affordable, both in general through leveraging the mortgage market, and in particular, they have a mission that this Congress has given them in return for some of the arrangements which are of some benefit to them to focus on affordable housing, and that is what I am concerned about here. I believe that we, as the Federal Government, have probably done too little rather than too much to push them to meet the goals of affordable housing and to set reasonable goals. I worry frankly that there is a tension here.

The more people, in my judgment, exaggerate a threat of safety and soundness, the more people conjure up the possibility of serious financial losses to the Treasury, which I do not see. I think we see entities that are fundamentally sound financially and withstand some of the disastrous scenarios. And even if there were a problem, the Federal Government doesn't bail them out. But the more pressure there is there, then the less I think we see in terms of affordable housing.

What? I hope you are foreign. All I got from that jumble, is that it is all Bush's fault. Tell me, how did President Bush cause the housing crisis? Have your taxes gone up to pay for the Bush deficits? You may want to look up the Community Reinvestment Act, if you want to find the root of the problem.

Selective reading retention......

Without the need for difference or a need to always follow the herd breeds complacency, mediocrity, and a lack of imagination

And believe it or not some of this would seem to go along with some of trumptman's thinking.

Quote:

A leader has to pursue a certain goal – they have to be leading for something. They
also need a good dose of flexibility. I think it’s important that leaders be capable of
collaborating successfully with strong people around them, that they be willing to
listen to others and not feel intimidated. In the political sphere, my view is that we
had bad leadership in the US over the last eight years, because we had decisionmakers
at the top who didn’t want to hear anything that contradicted their
predetermined points of view. By contrast, I see the current leadership as competent,
even though it’s still early days. Whatever else you may say about the Obama
administration, though they have their own political convictions they are open to new
things and willing to entertain the alternatives. There’s no doubt in my mind that the
greatest 20th-century American president was Franklin Roosevelt. Certainly he was
no intellectual or brilliant deep thinker, but nor did he pretend to be. His strengths lay
more in surrounding himself with people who were. He was comfortable with himself
and his vision of what the country should be – and that’s precisely what we need.

Without the need for difference or a need to always follow the herd breeds complacency, mediocrity, and a lack of imagination

And believe it or not some of this would seem to go along with some of trumptman's thinking.

I read the entire article. I can't understand why you posted it. I'm no fan of Krugman, but in the transcript it's clear that he repudiates most of what you're claiming. He repudiates that notion that the Great Depression was ended by government stimulus, for example. He also talks pretty extensively about the housing bubble.

He does hold the opinion (from what I can gather) that household debt either helped cause the recession or was a leading indicator for the recession (perhaps both). That's worthy point to consider. I don't know that I agree with him completely, not is it totally independent from the housing bubble issue anyway.

I can only please one person per day. Today is not your day. Tomorrow doesn't look good either.

I read the entire article. I can't understand why you posted it. I'm no fan of Krugman, but in the transcript it's clear that he repudiates most of what you're claiming. He repudiates that notion that the Great Depression was ended by government stimulus, for example. He also talks pretty extensively about the housing bubble.

He does hold the opinion (from what I can gather) that household debt either helped cause the recession or was a leading indicator for the recession (perhaps both). That's worthy point to consider. I don't know that I agree with him completely, not is it totally independent from the housing bubble issue anyway.

I never said " Totally independent ". I said it wasn't the only issue. People spend lots of money on things besides houses.

Quote:

He does hold the opinion (from what I can gather) that household debt either helped cause the recession or was a leading indicator for the recession (perhaps both). That's worthy point to consider. I don't know that I agree with him completely, not is it totally independent from the housing bubble issue anyway.

However that last statement was a big concession from you and a fair one that I can respect.

Without the need for difference or a need to always follow the herd breeds complacency, mediocrity, and a lack of imagination

Usually we are in total disagreement and you have nothing positive to say about my submissions. This was different. More willing to talk.

I saw it as a positive step. Forgive me if I'm wrong.

I don't mean to start a war here, but....

I still don't understand why you posted what you did. Most of what Krugman is saying goes against the positions you hold. What was the point of posting it ? What specifically do you agree with? You said you shared his views of the crisis. It doesn't seem so.

As for postings in general, when you make a good point, I will usually acknowledge it. In this case I'm just honestly asking why you posted the article you did.

I can only please one person per day. Today is not your day. Tomorrow doesn't look good either.

I still don't understand why you posted what you did. Most of what Krugman is saying goes against the positions you hold. What was the point of posting it ? What specifically do you agree with? You said you shared his views of the crisis. It doesn't seem so.

As for postings in general, when you make a good point, I will usually acknowledge it. In this case I'm just honestly asking why you posted the article you did.

Quote:

Most of what Krugman is saying goes against the positions you hold.

How so? Unless you're reading something there that I'm not. Look he gave a lecture last year at work ( I work at a local university in case you forgot ). I found that his ideas made a lot of sense to me then and still do. Not everything Obama does gets my seal of approval if that's what you're getting at.
Also I do give you a hard time about Bush but he was one in a long line that didn't do anything about this growing problem we had with the economy.
He was just the most recent president that had a long time to act and didn't.

Without the need for difference or a need to always follow the herd breeds complacency, mediocrity, and a lack of imagination

How so? Unless you're reading something there that I'm not. Look he gave a lecture last year at work ( I work at a local university in case you forgot ). I found that his ideas made a lot of sense to me then and still do. Not everything Obama does gets my seal of approval if that's what you're getting at.
Also I do give you a hard time about Bush but he was one in a long line that didn't do anything about this growing problem we had with the economy.
He was just the most recent president that had a long time to act and didn't.

Krugman talks a lot about getting the economy back on track and seems to disparage huge social spending like we're seeing now. He talks about WWII being the real catalyst that got us out of the Great Depression. It was my understanding that you think the stimulus is a good thing. But this is exactly what Krugman says is unlikely to work. He also focuses a lot of the housing bubble being the cause of the recent crisis. My understanding was that you blamed it more on the actions (or lack thereof) of Bush-Cheney. Am I wrong?

As for Obama, I don't know precisely where you stand. You have expressed the notion that "we had to do something" on the economy, and seem to think that a clearly bad "something" is better than nothing. I disagree if that's the case.

I don't agree about Bush "not dong anything" because you're unwilling to say what he should have done. Deregulation didn't cause the current crisis and economic weakness. To my knowledge that is the only reason or action you've provided.

I can only please one person per day. Today is not your day. Tomorrow doesn't look good either.

Obama, in a White House speech, said he believed the stimulus will save or create 1.5 million jobs in 2010 after saving or creating as many as 2 million jobs thus far.

These are just unmitigated lies. Unemployment has gone up what...three percentage points since Obama took office? And yet we've "saved or created jobs?" It's friggin' Orwellian.

Quote:

His point was to show that the stimulus, while admittedly unpopular, had the effect of keeping the U.S. economy from plunging into a second Great Depression.

"Our work is far from over but we have rescued this economy from the worst of this crisis," he said.

There is no evidence of that whatsoever. The real rescue--TARP--was put through before he took office. In reality, Obama is likely making the recovery take longer by piling on mountains of debt.

I still can't decide what Obama believes here. Either he actually thinks massive government spending will create jobs, or the stimulus was just one giant slush fund from the beginning, designed to buy off entire congressional districts at election time with pork barrel spending. It suppose it might be both.

I can only please one person per day. Today is not your day. Tomorrow doesn't look good either.

Unemployment goes from 8.5% to 10.6% in 2009 and we're having LESS job loss? How does that work? From this graph we're losing jobs at the same levels as Jan 2008 - but labor reports puts job losses at 473,000.

Unemployment goes from 8.5% to 10.6% in 2009 and we're having LESS job loss? How does that work? From this graph we're losing jobs at the same levels as Jan 2008 - but labor reports puts job losses at 473,000.

There are NO seasonally adjusted losses (Initial Claims) less than 432,000 in 2009, according to the Department of Labor.

All the data shows how dismal job losses were in 2008. A year in which we were told: "The US economy is sound" by our president. It also clearly demonstrates significant reduction of job losses in 2009.

I am not sure what you are trying to show.
Bush was the worst president ever for employment? You have clearly demonstrated this.
Tax cuts eliminate jobs? Very well demonstrated.
Do you believe the numbers of 2008 or do you think all the numbers are made up by the right wing to show how terrible they are on jobs?
Do you believe presidents have no influence on these numbers?
Do you believe tax cuts for the richest of the rich had no influence on these numbers?
God doesn't like conservatives?

This is the only part of your post that seems to actually capture the 2009 information difference between that graph and the data on the DOL site.

But if you want to ignore that, go ahead.

Quote:

I am not sure what you are trying to show.

I'm sharing some info on Obama's web site - www.barackobama.com - that is supposedly using info on the DOL site to indicate Obama's job recovery is accomplishing something, but the information seems to be contradicted by the actual numbers. All I see is more "It's still Bush's fault" using pretty colors. What I don't see is an explanation of the methodology used.

Yes... people who lose their unemployment benefits by getting new jobs.

I am having trouble finding my earlier post but it was not too long ago that I posted a story that talked about how the calculation for unemployment was altered. The new calculation method seemed like it would alter the number in favor of the current administration. I am still looking but I think the main point here would be, until you know what is actually under all the numbers it may not be actually beneficial to believe the numbers at face value. Except for the possible halo effect that could occur in people seeing "good news" about the recovering economy. Of course, if people don't actually see a change in their financial circumstances, that halo would be very short lived...

NoahJ"It is unwise to be too sure of one's own wisdom. It is healthy to be reminded that the strongest might weaken and the wisest might err." - Mahatma Gandhi